**UPDATE** After having this iPod for 18 months now, I thought I'd update my review as parts of it are no longer true. This review was updated 22.07.09 :-)

** UPDATE** I'll have owned my iPod Classic for two years when December comes, so at the end of this review I'll give you an update on how it's running almost 24 months after it was first purchased.

I was hesitant about buying an iPod as my first, an iPod mini a few years ago, broke and never mended itself as
soon as I bought it. It was sent back and I've been using other (decent) players since. But iPods are so popular
I decided to give them another shot and, truthfully, am very pleased that I did.

After using a perfectly good Samsung YP-Z5A 4GB Mp3 player, I was bought the iPod Classic 80GB (in black) for
a Christmas present. Firstly, I would order it off the official Apple website - it's exactly the same price
(£159.00) from Apple as it is from other stores such as Argos or Currys, and you can get an engravement written
on the back of it completely free of charge. Despite saying it could take up to almost 2 weeks to arrive, it came
three days later in perfectly good condition. HOWEVER, if you are going to order it for someone's birthday, it
goes without saying that you order it well in advance, because it could take longer than expected. Also note that an engravement on the back of your iPod lowers its resale value.

Here is a pretty in-depth review of the iPod, which I hope is helpful to you.

FEATURES

There are so many different features on iPod:

MUSIC

- seperated into different categories all to do with your music files. There's coverflow, playlists,
artists, albums, songs, genres, composers, audiobooks, and search. A brief description of each - coverflow opens
up a great function which displays album covers 'swimming' across the page. You can pick which album you want
to listen to by simply clicking on the album, scrolling through with the clickwheel. Playlists opens up your
certain playlists which hold certain kinds of songs, eg I have a playlist for working out with all songs I like
to exercise to, so I just click on the playlist when I'm at the gym. Artists folder opens up your list of
different artists, albums finds a particular album you wish to listen to, while songs opens up a folder filled
with every song on your iPod (including ones from your playlists). Genres opens up rock/pop/country etc songs
if you're in a particular mood and want to listen to a specific genre, composers opens up a list of composers
if you'd like to listen to a particular one and audiobooks displays the audiobooks you've purchased from the
iTunes store. Search basically means you can search for a particular song/album/artist.

VIDEO

- seperated into movies, TV shows, music videos, video playlists and settings. I'm pleased with this function as you can purchase movies from the iTunes Store AND rent them, (although I feel the renting prices are a little expensive, as if I were to download one to rent I would only be watching it on the screen, although of course you could hook your iPod up to your TV and watch it on there). For legal reasons, I
can't post my tips for this on here, but if you search google about watching DVDs on iPods, you can find out for
yourselves the options available to put your own DVDs on your iPod. TV shows can be downloaded off the iTunes store. iTunes has improved since January 08 - English television shows are now available to buy, which previously they had been looked over to make way for American TV shows. I'm impressed with the TV shows available - what I've wanted to find has always been available. Music Videos are pretty good - they look really
great and clear on the big screen of your iPod, but at £1.89, they're fairly expensive when you can buy a TV
episode of a show for exactly the same price (and lasts much longer, too). I bought a High School Musical music
video for £1.89 and it lasts just 2 minutes. Buy a TV episode for £1.89 and you're looking at 27 minutes - it's
quite a difference. Video playlists set your videos into certain categories (like the music playlists, see above)
and settings alter certain things such as putting videos on your TV at home (I haven't tried this yet).

PHOTOS

- seperated into all photos, and settings. You can store 20,000 photos on this machine, which I think
is outstanding. Photos look great - clear, crisp and sharp images. You can arrange them into folders eg. "Mum's
Birthday", "Christmas Day 2007" to make it easier to show images to friends/family, or for your own use.
HOWEVER, I made the mistake of thinking you could load images onto the iPod and then delete them off the computer.
You CAN'T do this. Basically, the pictures you put on your iPod have to stay on your PC if you want them to stay
on your iPod. If you delete them from your PC, they'll delete straight off your iPod. This is VERY annoying
because due to my laptop being unusable at the moment, I'm using my Dads and clogging up folders with photos and
pictures which I must keep on here if I want them to stay on my iPod. Again, with settings, you can decide on how
long you want a picture to show on the screen for (if you're watching in a slideshow mode), add music to images,
shuffle them, repeat certain ones. It really is fantastic - except the whole PC clogging with photos problem. Again, the picture quality is fantastic - the photos look really crisp and bright.

PODCASTS

- free videos you can get off the iTunes store if you subscribe to them. I don't bother with these,
because most of them only last a couple of minutes but if you want a preview of a show or a recap of an episode,
they are useful. And - like I said - they are completely free.

EXTRAS

- seperated into clocks, calendars, contacts, alarms, games, notes, screen lock, stopwatch. The clock
shows the time in California (I think because California is where the idea of iPod originated, but I'm not
entirely sure). In calendars, there's a to-do list and shows you if you're alarm is set. Contacts need to be synced
from your computer (easily done), you can set an alarm or a sleep timer using the alarm function where you can
wake up to your favourite song instead of that horrible beeping noise most alarm clocks use. iPod comes with three
games that you'll find on the classic - vortex, klondike and iPod Quiz. I've downloaded a couple off the iTunes
site (£3.99 per game) but the game iPod Quiz that comes with it is really good - it uses your own music files
and asks you questions about them. The games are fantastic quality and great boredom busters. Add your own notes
using the note function (a shopping list, for example), and screen lock allows you to add a combination to stop
others from using your iPod - great if another family member hassles to borrow it when you really don't want them
to. Stopwatch is useful for exercise use and keeps a record of times kept (until you want to clear them).

SETTINGS

- seperated into 'about', 'shuffle', 'repeat', main menu', 'music menu', 'volume limit', 'backlight',
'brightness', 'audiobooks', 'EQ', 'soundcheck', 'clicker', 'date and time', 'sort by', 'language', 'legal',
'reset settings'. 'About' shows you how much space you've used so far in your iPod capacity, shows you how much is
free and if you press the centre button a second time it tells you how many songs/photos/games etc your ipod
currently holds. Pressing the centre button again displays your ipod serial number, model and version (useful
if you need to state them when phoning an apple help centre for example). 'Shuffle' asks you whether you want to
shuffle (play randomly) your song collection - you can choose whether to have this off or on. 'Repeat' is also a
similar function - decide whether you want to repeat a particular playlist (whilst doing exercise, so you don't
have to keep getting out your iPod to choose a song). The 'main menu' function is particularly useful as you can
decide which folders are displayed on your main menu - if, for example, you don't listen to the radio much, you can
take this off your main menu and make a direct button on your main menu to take you to your playlists, if you use
that function more often. 'Music menu' does the same thing - you can decide which headings you want in your music
menu, including certain functions like 'compilations', which isn't currently on the music menu. 'Volume limit' is
where you can choose how loud you want your music to play (you can also sort this in iTunes). You can set a
combination here to make sure nobody else changes the volume limit you have set. With 'backlight', you can choose
how long the backlight stays on for on your iPod (if it's set to being on all the time, it drains the battery
quicker). The 'brightness' setting can be altered - personally, I like having mine on 100%, but to save the battery
you can have it set to a bit duller and it still looks good. Using the 'audiobook' section, you can choose to have
the pace 'normal', 'quick' or 'slow', which is great if normal audiobooks don't read at the same pace you usually
do. With the 'EQ' you can have music set to 'acoustic', 'bass booster', 'deep' etc to make your songs sound better
(a rock song will sound better with rock EQ). With the 'sound check', you can choose to normalize the volume across
all songs or use the original volume level for all songs. 'Clicker' lets you remove the 'clicking' noise of the
click wheel to just silent, which some people prefer. 'Date and Time' is easily altered - just use the click
wheel to make any amendments.

MY OWN EXPERIENCE WITH IPOD CLASSIC 80GB

I can't get enough of this iPod and generally on a daily basis use it an awful lot - with such a huge storage
capacity, I have every song I love on it and loads of photos of my friends and family. So far I find it a slick product but with a few annoying aggreviances.
like with every thing,
there are advantages and disadvantages to this iPod classic model.

To make it easier, I'll split it into the two
categories:

ADVANTAGES

:The outside of the iPod is professional and looks really impressive - so impressive that when I get the player out of my pocket my friends always compliment on the outer-appearance of the product. The quality and brightness of the screen is fantastic, with clear picture quality. The cover flow function makes it easy to select a particular album. The click-wheel allows for easy navigation and is easy to use (may take a few attempts to get used to) and also allows you to scroll through your songs quickly and with ease. The menu makes for clear and easy navigation, as it takes you to the file you want to go into with no problems at all. The screen is big and the whole product looks slick, sleek and beautiful. Forget bulky or chunky - it's slim and I love the fact it's quite large as it's better to view videos/TV programmes with a larger screen. Also, because Apple is so popular, there's always loads of accessories to accompany it (skins, adaptors, etc). You can buy a whole load of skins and covers off ebay for no more than £2 if you want to accessorise your iPod. If you're one of those who like to sing along to your songs (but like me, sometimes don't remember the words) you can display lyrics on the screen as you're listening to songs which can be quite useful (but you need to add these in iTunes, doesn't take long at all). So much capacity - you can pretty much load everything you have in your entire media collection. There's no way I can fill 80GB but I'll have some fun trying - why not?! There's so much space! Looks impressive and fashionable. Doesn't take long to download music/videos/TV episodes off iTunes at all, and iTunes lets you download a whole TV series for reasonable prices (in the UK music albums costing about £8.99). However, if you can't afford to pay for tracks of iTunes, there's nothing to stop you from importing your CDs that you already own, which is simply done at the click of a button. Importing music is easy and everything is explained in a manual. Podcasts are pretty cool - and if you're studying for GCSE's it's great because there are free podcasts to learn from (all podcasts are free). Games are probably the best buy - I've bought quite a few for £3.99 each and they are fantastic, easy to use and great boredom busters (the iPod comes with three pre-loaded games). Another advantage is that 18 months after owning this product, the battery is still in great condition and has showed no signs of wear, despite me using the iPod for long periods of use on a daily basis. I still love it today as much as I did the day I got it!

DISADVANTAGES

: I had difficulty with my iPod when my album art and photos weren't showing up when I was trying to view them. I
know quite a few others with the 80GB classic were experiencing the same problem BUT all you have to do is hold
down the centre key and the menu key for atleast six seconds and it resolves the problem. HOWEVER this may not
work for your ipod and again it goes without saying you should consult the manual before you restart/programme
any part of your ipod (what I did didn't get rid of anything stored on my iPod). The Bad Bits: Having to use iTunes. Products on iTunes are a little expensive - Ok, 79p a song is cheap, but if you buy 20,000 songs (which I think is the capacity), you're looking at a very expensive music collection (£15,000 +)! Music videos are approx £1.89 which I feel is a little expensive as a TV episode (which lasts much longer) is the same price. Another factor I'm not keen on is the menu on the iPod is split in two - on the left hand side are your options to take you to a particular place in your iPod (music, video, movies) and on the right-hand side are 'floating' pictures either from your music or photo collection. This is all very good and well, but there's no way of setting a background, eg a particularly favourite photograph, which can be displayed while listening to all your songs. I could do this on my previous MP3/4 players and liked that particular function. But it's no biggie! The battery life is also pretty weak - I have to charge mine practically every day - it definitely doesn't last the 30 hours like it says (however, I resolved this by turning down my screen brightness, which saves HOURS. Now it lasts for days without needing recharging). iTunes doesn't allow for "drag & drop " - in other words, you MUST use iTunes to sync your music/photo files, unlike some MP3 players where you can open up a folder and just drop and drag everything into it (which is much easier) therefore iTunes can be pretty time-consuming. My biggest disappointment with the iTunes programme is with the photos - you can't delete photos off your computer once you've loaded them onto your iPod. The photos MUST stay on your computer if you want them to stay on your iPod. This can be quite annoying when you perhaps have a family computer and don't want others to see what pictures you have on your iPod (!). Sound quality - not too brilliant, but not bad either. I replaced my Apple earphones with new Apple earphones after listening to my girlfriend's iPod through her earphones and realising mine must have just been faulty from the beginning. Sound quality is now fine, thanks to new Apple earphones. Fingermarks show up on the back of the player - driving me crazy, but is still a very decent mirror! Scratches cover the whole of the back now (18 months on) but it still looks nice. The black click wheel is also showing some scratches.

Here are a few tips I've compiled which might be useful to you as an iPod user/potential iPod user:

TIPS

1) If you own audiobooks, like myself, you can't load them into the specific audiobook folder on your iPod (as
far as I'm aware), because it's specifically for downloads off the iTunes store. So, just make a seperate playlist
within your music folder and put them in there - it's very easily done and doesn't stop you from listening to
your favourite novels/plays etc. The only disadvantage is you can't speed up/slow down the talking pace of the
narrator, but this is no biggie.

2) When you go onto the Apple iPod store to have it engraved, sometimes engravings won't work - for example,
Apple finds the engraving rude/inappropriate. This can easily be sorted by taking the iPod to your jewellers
who will engrave it on for you for a small charge.

3) Instead of buying expensive iPod accessories off the Apple website, check out ebay, where iPod case protectors
are as little as £0.99p.

4) To get DVDs on your iPod (you can't do this by simply putting a DVD into iTunes and ripping it as you would a
CD), use google.com to find software to do this (this is NOT illegal if you are ripping your own DVDs for your own private use). You can also put videos from YouTube on your iPod - try DVD Video Soft (free).

Overall

, I do love the iPod, and find it an excellent music player which looks far more impressive than any other. It can hold your entire media collection and looks very impressive. The new iPod Nano Videos are small and for about £50-60 more (than the black nano video) you can get this fantastic model with loads more capacity AND a bigger screen. I won't be looking for a replacement for a long time! Alright everyone, thanks for reading.

UPDATE - HOW'S IT RUNNING NOW?

I've now (nearly) had my iPod Classic for 2 years (it will be 2 years old in December). The iPod still runs perfectly - it plays music well, and the battery is in superb condition (it doesn't need charging more frequently thanks to it being a little older). I have had two problems with it, however:
1. The earphones needed replacing, and
2. A long black line has appeared across the screen.
Obviously the second problem has been the most significant problem to date. On the front screen there is a line which shows going across. It's difficult to describe, as it's not a scratch on my iPod but is actually a problem with the player inside. It doesn't make the music play any differently, so the iPod still does its job very well, but it doesn't look as nice anymore, and it's slightly annoying knowing it is there at all times! Still, like I said, the actual player still plays music the same, so it's no huge problem.